For years and years, I represented mncoalgasplant.com opposing this wretched boondoggle of a pipe-dream of “clean” and “green.”

IGCC – Pipedreams of Green and Clean

The project lingers on, on life-support, and pulling the plug is long overdue.

The good news is that the Duluth News Tribune is finally paying attention, and looking into the financial irregularities.  Duluth News articles are here, and next will be some responses.

It started with an article in Duluth News Tribune, first in a series, the second below:

Published August 21, 2011, 09:40 AM

 

Millions in public money spent, but Iron Range power plant still just a dream

DNT investigation, part 1 of 2: When Excelsior Energy launched its ambitious, clean energy project in 2001, the company touted it as a way to bring much-needed jobs and investment to the Iron Range. But after nearly a decade and receiving more than $40 million in public money, Excelsior has little to show.

By: Peter Passi, Duluth News Tribune

When Excelsior Energy launched its ambitious, clean energy project in 2001, the company touted it as a way to bring much-needed jobs and investment to the Iron Range at a time when local residents were still stinging from the closure of LTV Steel Mining Co. The innovative, state-of-the-art coal gasification plant also would enable the nation to more effectively tap domestic coal reserves with minimal harm to the environment.

But after nearly a decade and receiving more than $40 million in public money, Excelsior has little to show. While significant work has gone into developing site plans and engineering work and garnering permits, the company has yet to move a shovelful of dirt to build its would-be 2,000-megawatt, $2.1 billion power plant.

And despite receiving virtually all of its backing from the public trough, the company’s spending records, including its officers’ paychecks, remain under wraps.

“At the end of the day, this is a project that has not hired one full-time worker on the Iron Range. Only lawyers, lobbyists and professional meeting attenders have gotten jobs,” said Rep. Tom Anzelc, D-Balsam Township, the only Iron Range legislator who has opposed the project. “And it has all been financed by the public.”

Behind the delay

Heading Excelsior are two seasoned energy professionals: Tom Micheletti, a Hibbing native and former Northern States Power executive, and his wife, Julie Jorgensen, former CEO of CogenAmerica and VP of NRG Energy Inc.

Supporting them is another Iron Range legislator, Sen. Tom Bakk, D-Cook, who argues that cleaner ways of turning abundant domestic supplies of coal into electricity are greatly needed.

Bakk blames the development’s delay on Xcel Energy’s refusal to do business with Excelsior, with the established energy company intimating that power from the new plant could be too expensive and could drive up customer rates.

“There was clear legislative intent that Xcel would purchase their power, but Xcel has been unwilling to enter an agreement,” Bakk said. “Without an out-take agreement, the project has not been bankable.”

Excelsior has made repeated efforts to persuade the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission to compel Xcel to buy its power, but has so far been unsuccessful.

Micheletti, who serves jointly with his wife as Excelsior Energy’s president and CEO, also said the project has suffered from unfortunate timing and the effects of a recession.

“Hardly anything is being built right now,” said Micheletti. “Load growth has come to a standstill, so there’s not a great deal of need for new facilities right now.”

Regulatory uncertainties facing the power industry have further complicated the plant’s outlook, Micheletti said, though he added that tougher regulation could help the project if it leads to the shutdown of older, dirtier coal-burning power plants or a shift away from nuclear energy.

Yet Micheletti said he’s stopped making predictions as to when Excelsior will build its first plant.

“It bothers me that, given the current economic situation, we’re not where we thought we’d be,” he said. “By now, 3,000 people would be working on the site if things had gone the way we thought.”

Public funding

From the start, Excelsior has relied primarily on public support, according to a 2008 audit by the Minnesota Office of the Legislative Auditor. The agency noted that excluding a small sum of private seed money, “the company initially relied mainly on Iron Range Resources loans for many basic costs it needed to operate, such as office space, desks and computers.”

In 2001, Excelsior borrowed $1.5 million from the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board. Additional loans have brought that company’s IRRRB debt to $9.5 million

In August 2010, Excelsior was to begin repayment of its IRRRB loans, but the agency extended the timeline to 2017, in light of project delays.

The company also received $10 million in state aid through the Minnesota Public Utility Commission’s Renewable Development Fund, despite objections from environmental groups about spending such funds on a plant designed to run on fossil fuel.

The U.S. Department of Energy contributed another $22 million, intended to cover half of the preliminary design costs.

The only public record of private equity in Excelsior occurred at its inception, when Micheletti and Jorgensen made a combined investment of $60,000.

Shuttered windows

Tracing where all Excelsior’s public money went and how it has been used is not easily accomplished, particularly after state lawmakers voted to restrict public access to Excelsior’s financial statements. Before 2008, reports the company is required to submit to the IRRRB as part of its loan agreement had been publicly available.

But that year, the Minnesota Legislature changed the state law, with a conference committee inserting language into an omnibus tax bill to classify financial disclosures made to the IRRRB.

Bakk, a member of that committee and also of the IRRRB’s board of directors, told the News Tribune he had no recollection of inserting the language and suggested the IRRRB itself may have requested the change.

Sheryl Kochevar, an IRRRB spokeswoman, confirmed that, justifying it to say the agency’s aid recipients should have “privacy protections that are similar to those a business would expect and receive when it is dealing with a bank.”

Kochevar said the IRRRB must approve all its loans and investments in a public meeting. After that, however, she said the agency will not disclose “nonpublic data about the business that it uses to monitor and protect its loan to or investment in the business.”

Bakk defended the IRRRB’s rationale, saying that if the agency required total transparency of the companies it assists, some might shun its aid, causing the Range to miss out on potential economic development opportunities.

But there is nothing stopping Excelsior itself from disclosing what it does with the public money it receives. Micheletti, however, refused to release that information.

“We do not and have never disclosed confidential private financial information, so that subject is off limits,” he told the News Tribune.

Charlotte Neigh, co-chair of Citizens Against the Mesaba Project, a group opposed to the plant, said the Legislature’s secrecy provision came on the heels of a complaint her group made about some of Excelsior’s uses of IRRRB funds that touched off an examination by the Office of the Legislative Auditor.

The auditors found Excelsior had indeed used some IRRRB loan funds for inappropriate purposes, including lobbying. The company subsequently was required to repay $40,161.

Anzelc contends that any entity that has received so much public assistance ought to be more forthright about how it has spent taxpayer money.

“I believe they should tell us exactly what they’ve done with all the public dollars they have secured,” he said.

Limited view

Even when Excelsior’s financial reports to the IRRRB were still public, they sometimes provided scant detail.

A 2004 letter to the IRRRB Board of Directors from Freeberg & Freeberg Certified Public Accountants acknowledged gaps in Excelsior’s reporting.

“Management has elected to omit substantially all of the disclosures and the statements of cash flows and retained earnings required by generally accepted accounting principles,” the report said.

Still, the reports provided a limited view into how the company was spending its funds. As of the end of 2006 — the last year for which financial reports are public — Excelsior had spent $9.6 million on engineering and site development, $8.2 million on permits and regulatory work, $6.9 million on commercial, financial and administrative services and $7.9 million on in-house staff and consulting expenses since the project’s inception.

Some of these expenses were in the form of unpaid bills to be settled at a later date. A significant portion of that debt was owed to the husband-and-wife team at Excelsior’s core.

State funds from the IRRRB and the Renewable Development Fund could not be used to compensate Micheletti and Jorgensen. Even though they could not collect paychecks for the first several years of Excelsior’s existence, Micheletti’s and Jorgensen’s salaries were carried on the company’s books with the understanding that payments would be made when appropriate funds became available.

According to records, in 2001, the two drew a combined $125,000 in deferred pay. In August 2002, the deferred annual salary of each was increased to $250,000, or $500,000 for the pair. In 2003, they each received another $50,000 raise, bringing their combined annual pay to $600,000, where it remained through 2006, at the last time of public disclosure.

The first indication that Excelsior actually cut paychecks for Micheletti and Jorgensen can be found in 2006, when Department of Energy funds became available for the project. As of 2005, Excelsior owed the pair $2.49 million jointly. In 2006, that debt was reduced by $600,000.

Micheletti’s and Jorgensen’s deferred annual salaries totaled $600,000 each of the previous three years. And unless the co-presidents took a cut, Excelsior actually would have had to pay them $1.2 million in 2006 to reduce their total deferred pay by $600,000 in a single year.

How much more pay Micheletti and Jorgensen have received since 2006 has not been publicly disclosed.

Micheletti refused the News Tribune’s request to disclose how much Excelsior has paid its officers, saying, “As I have indicated to you many times before, our company, like all others, does not disclose confidential information, including confidential financial information.”

 

Part II of the Duluth News Tribune series on Excelsior Energy:

Published August 22, 2011, 12:30 AM

Iron Range energy project seeks lifeline in more funding, new fuel source

Despite receiving more than $40 million in federal and state government money, Excelsior Energy risks running out of gas if it cannot attract additional investment from the public or private sector soon.

By: Peter Passi, Duluth News Tribune

* EARLIER: Millions in public money spent, but Iron Range power plant still just a dream

Despite receiving more than $40 million in federal and state government money, Excelsior Energy risks running out of gas if it cannot attract additional investment from the public or private sector soon.

Gone are state funds, including:

# About $9.5 million in loans it received from the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board, and

# $10 million from the Minnesota Renewable Development Fund.

Soon, Excelsior will burn through the more than $22 million in federal funding the Department of Energy earmarked to help develop its clean coal project on the Iron Range, according to financial records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and analyzed by the News Tribune.

Those records show that as of Sept. 30, 2010, Excelsior had only about $1.9 million in unobligated DOE funds still available. The company had already spent more than 90 percent of the federal funding approved for project development.

And at what was then the company’s expenditure rate — consuming an average of $418,000 in grant funding per quarter in 2010 — Excelsior would exhaust the last of its federal aid before the end of this calendar year.

Tom Micheletti, Excelsior’s co-president and CEO, refused to discuss how much money the company has left or where it will turn next. Yet his confidence remained intact.

“We’ve got staying power to see our way through this,” he said.

Rep. Tom Anzelc, D-Balsam Township, said he expects Excelsior will turn again to the IRRRB for more support. But IRRRB Commissioner Tony Sertich said there have been no discussions about providing aid to Excelsior beyond the loans that it already has received.

“I don’t anticipate any further request from them,” he said. “We’re watching to see what happens next, just like everyone else.”

Refueling

Unable to move ahead with plans to build a $2.1 billion power plant that would run on gasified coal, Excelsior received authorization from the Minnesota Legislature this past session to proceed initially with a plant fueled by natural gas.

Sen. Tom Bakk, D-Cook, supported Excelsior’s request.

“I think that if we allow Excelsior to start as a natural gas plant, it substantially increases the chance that it (the coal plant) will be built,” he said.

Bakk noted that a natural gas-fueled plant would rely on pre-existing rather than relatively untested technology.

“There’s much less risk from an investor standpoint,” he said.

Anzelc was the only Iron Range legislator to oppose the idea of allowing Excelsior to shift gears and build a natural gas plant instead of one running on gasified coal. He sees the change of plans as a last-ditch effort to throw Excelsior a lifeline.

“The majority of the Range delegation and the governor believe that this is the only way to get any of the $9.5 million in IRRRB funds back. You need to have an actual project that has permits and is constructed. You need a real company that makes a profit,” he said.

Nevertheless, as hard as it may be to accept the loss, Anzelc contends that walking away from Excelsior is the responsible thing to do.

At present, natural gas prices are comparatively low, making it a competitive fuel for power generation, said Julie Jorgensen, Excelsior’s co-president and CEO. Still, Excelsior needs to consider the long-term price outlook for both gas and coal, and Micheletti said the company is weighing its options.

“Do we go slow on one and faster with the other or vice-versa?” he asked. “Or do we proceed with both at once?”

Micheletti estimates a couple of 600-megawatt natural gas-powered units could be built for about $900 million. That’s less than half the anticipated cost of Excelsior’s proposed gasified coal plant. Also, permits for natural gas-fired generators are typically easier to obtain than for coal-burning plants.

One roadblock is that Department of Energy money earmarked for “clean coal” technology probably could not be used to help develop a natural gas plant, Micheletti said. Regardless, he said, Excelsior is in a unique position to push a power plant along quickly.

“Right now, we have the only viable new site for an energy plant in the Midwest because of all the work we’ve done,” he said.

But Anzelc said Excelsior still lacks one essential: a customer.

“To my knowledge, no on in the power business is supportive of this project,” he said.

Search for customers

While Micheletti said he could not discuss specifics because of confidentiality concerns, he said Excelsior is in active talks with potential customers. He said the company will push ahead with a project only when markets justify the investment.

“A lot of companies went bankrupt building on spec. We’re not going to build without a customer,” he said.

Pat Mullen, Minnesota Power’s vice president of marketing and public affairs, isn’t surprised that Excelsior is looking at alternatives to its plan for a gasified coal plant.

“Their original project was way too expensive, and it didn’t get any traction,” he said. “We didn’t want it and neither did Xcel.”

Xcel and Minnesota Power objected to the project, warning that it would drive up their customers’ rates.

Excelsior sought to compel Xcel to buy power from its plant through a power purchase agreement, but the Public Utilities Commission refused.

Even the revamped natural gas plant plan could be a tough sell, however.

Minnesota Power spokeswoman Amy Rutledge said her company has been diversifying its energy portfolio to meet a state mandate that 25 percent of its power come from renewable sources by 2025. The company recently signed a deal to purchase another 250 megawatts of power from Manitoba Hydro in 2020. But new fossil fuel energy is not in Minnesota Power’s plans.

“We’ve looked at the energy needs of our customers,” Rutledge said, “and it is clear we have no need for additional power from Excelsior.”

Xcel Energy has plans to retire two coal-burning units at its Black Dog plant in Burnsville, Minn., and replace them with natural gas units. To obtain permits for that project, the company was required to seek alternative proposals to supply 435 megawatts of power by 2016 or 2017.

But the July deadline has come and gone, and Patti Nystuen, an Xcel spokeswoman, said Excelsior did not submit a proposal and Xcel anticipates no need for additional generation.

Minnesota Power’s Mullen described what he considers “a flat market” for power generation,

But he’s not counting Excelsior out.

“You have to give them credit for their tenacity,” Mullen said.

You may remember prior posts about that but I’ll start from the beginning and try to make it quick.  There’s a pattern at the Office of Administrative Hearings that is disturbing…

Way back on the MinnCan pipeline, members of U-CAN had tried to intervene and were refused.  They got late notice and were not represented, stumbling through the administrative process pro se.  MPIRG showed an interest and started working on it, among other things, submitting a Petition for Intervention:

MPIRG Petition for Intervention – MinnCan Pipeline

Despite the late notice and their attempts to “work within the system,” the Petition of MPRIG individual U-CAN members was denied:

OAH – Denial of Intervention

And when they appealed, they were tossed out, as if they had not even tried to intervene:

MinnCan Appellate Decision

So when CapX 2020 hit, and they filed a Certificate of Need and landowners learned it wasn’t just the pipeline, but now transmission TOO (how much can a landowner stand?) they got right to it, and intervened as United Citizens Action Network (U-CAN), participating pro se as they had no resources to hire an attorney and were in condemnation and appellate court at the time.  They Petition, and were admitted as full parties.  So what happens?

Judge Heydinger, the same ALJ in the CapX Certificate of Need case as in the MinnCan pipeline case, files sua sponte (on her own initiative, not a Motion brought by parties) a demand that they explain why they, and the Prairie Island Indian Community,  should remain intervenors:

Order to Show Cause – U-CAN

Order to Show Cause – Prairie Island Indian Community

This had been done before in the Excelsior Energy Mesaba Project siting docket, where ALJ Steve Mihalchick booted out Xcel Energy, Minnesota Power, and my client, Public Energy – Mesaba, because no testimony had been provided:

5th Prehearing Order

This docket went forward, there were two days of hearings, first in Taconite, where ALJ Mihalchick rammed through 4 witnesses and where we weren’t provided adequate opportunity for questioning, and, I swear, when I tried to get a table, he said, “Whatever would you need a table for?”  Really… after much hassle, Bill Storm of Commerce found one (thank you!!).  Since that day, I bring my own.  Anyway, the second day, it was -30 in Hoyt Lakes and the hearing was in the unheated gym next to the hockey rink.

That day, Judge Mihalchick rammed through … what… 16 witnesses?…  in one day, and left saying, “I’m not coming back here.”

Travesty doesn’t begin to characterize that hearing.  And worse, Excelsior Energy got a permit for a vaporware project:

Excelsior Energy Mesaba Project siting hearing

Fast forward to 2011, where ALJ Heydinger has now again issued a similar Order to Show Cause regarding two intervenors, Energy Cents and Verso Paper:

Order to Show Cause

Here’s Verso Paper’s response:

Response to Order to Show Cause – Verso Paper

Just filed:   Order Confirming Party Status – Verso Paper

Where’s the Energy Cents Coalition?

Anyway, I’ve submitted a Rulemaking Petition to OAH about Minn. R. Ch. 1400 & 1405 to try to address some of this.  We shall see…

It’s hard to miss the Tammens — they are EVERYWHERE!!!  Saw them up in Clouqet about a year ago at an IATP Biomass love-fest, and they have been at every meeting and hearing for the Excelsior Energy Mesaba Project.  Good to see they’ve been noticed!!!

Here’s the profile in Session Weekly — thanks to Darrell Gerber for pointing this out:

Soudan snowbirds

Published (3/25/2011)
By Sue Hegarty
You might not notice Bob and Pat Tammen sitting in the House hearing rooms. Bob, clothed in a crisp, pressed dress shirt and necktie, blends in with the lobbyists, deputy commissioners and expert testifiers. Pat sits next to her husband, alert to the day’s agenda.

The Tammens are not on anybody’s political payroll, nor are they required to hear or give testimony about proposed legislation, unlike most in the gallery. Yet there they sit, day after day.

“We’ve seen a couple of committees that have citizens sitting there with equal standing. Sometimes I believe those citizens represent our values better than our elected officials,” Bob said.

On Pat’s 74th birthday, March 22, they were in the House Environment, Energy and Natural Resources Policy and Finance Committee hearing by 8:15 a.m. for 90 minutes of testimony; then again as testimony continued into the evening.

A retired couple from Soudan, the Tammens could spend the long, cold Minnesota winter anywhere. Instead, they pack up their 24-foot camper and drive to St. Paul, where they park in the Sears parking lot across from the State Office Building, so they can be close to all the legislative action.

“We like where we live, and when we talk about the quality of life in Minnesota, Soudan has it,” Bob said.

They begin their mornings with a walk across the street to buy a newspaper and coffee in the State Office Building. After sitting though the morning hearings in the House or Senate, they grab a bowl of soup at the Rathskeller, the State Capitol cafeteria. Afternoons may include more hearings or witnessing a rally in the Capitol Rotunda. In the evenings, they often drive their self-contained Winnebago to a bookstore where they share a sandwich. Pat scours the bookshelves while Bob uses the wireless Internet to check email.

They pay Sears a monthly parking fee of $30. So far, no one has rattled their metal cage, but they do need to watch their step when the snowplow clears the lot. On weekends, they return home to do laundry, open the mail and repack for another week in St. Paul.

In the spirit of full disclosure, they say they are DFLers and lifelong union workers. Pat taught elementary school in the Ely area for 38 years. Bob was an electrician who worked in the mines and did contract electrical work at Xcel’s nuclear power plant in Monticello. They pay dues to nearly every environmental group, but neither has ever held a board seat, they said.

Bob and Pat met after he returned from Vietnam in 1965.

Bob worked for several mining operations and for U.S. Steel, where he became familiar with mining’s residual effect on the environment. “Most of us were pretty nonchalant about what we were doing. There were a few voices in our communities warning us about this, but most of us didn’t listen,” he said.

They don’t always agree with some DFL legislators who say mining brings prosperity to a community.

“Look at Virginia. They are surrounded by taconite mines. You couldn’t squeeze any more mines in there hardly. They’re still losing population,” Bob said.

Pat followed the alternative pathways for teacher licensure debate in the House education committees and believes it will weaken the classroom.

When the legislative session ends, they’ll drive north again and park the camper on

20 acres of undeveloped land they own along 800 feet of shoreline. They’ll drop their canoe in the water and pick up stray fishing bobbers to add them their collection. Enjoying a respite from the Capitol chatter, they’ll hike through the new Lake Vermilion State Park near their house. No doubt, these citizen watchdogs will keep a watchful eye on how taxpayer dollars are being spent to develop the park that’s been called the jewel of the state park system.

Here’s my “Day 2” presentation at Alamosa, Colorado last Wednesday (a week ago already?  How can that be?):

San Luis Valley – Alamsoa Dog & Pony

And a report from the Valley Courier:

Proposed transmission line gets a little TLC

Posted: Friday, Jan 14th, 2011
By RUTH HEIDE Courier editor

ALAMOSA — In a series of public meetings surrounding a proposed
transmission line over La Veta Pass, the Transmission Line Coalition
(TLC) hosted speakers who addressed processes, alternatives and concerns
Wednesday night.

TLC is opposed to the proposed new power line, and the speakers during
the Wednesday forum questioned the motives and rationale behind the
proposal. They questioned that the line was necessary and encouraged
attendees to seek legislative action, pursue the NEPA (National
Environmental Policy Agency) process and “get loud” in their opposition
to the line.

TLC plans to host another forum in the Valley on April 20 with the utility companies as guest speakers.

Fort Garland resident Sally Keller described TLC as a coalition of
concerned citizens and independent member groups who support
environmentally sound alternatives that rely on upgrades to the existing
corridor.

“We do not support the transmission line,” she said.

TLC encompasses such groups as the Land Rights Council, Save La Veta
Valley, SLV Ecosystem Council, Sangre de Cristo Homeowners Association
and Majors Ranch Homeowners Association as well as individuals.

Keller reminded the group of some of the history of the line and efforts
to oppose it and said several matters are pending right now so “stay
tuned.”

Carol Overland, author of “Transmission Lies” and legal counsel
representing groups opposing transmission lines in the Midwest and East
Coast, questioned the need for new transmission lines anywhere in the
U.S. because demand has decreased.

“Demand is way down,” she said. “If demand is down, what’s the driver?”

She said one of the reasons power demands have decreased is the loss of big industry in this country.

“That kind of need is not coming back anytime soon,” she said.

“I have never met a transmission project that was for the reasons they say it is,” she said.

“The biggest lie of all is that we need it.”

Overland said she was not as familiar with Colorado processes and the
Valley’s proposal as she was with those in the Midwest where she works,
but she encouraged the audience to question the stated purposes for the
new line here. She said completing the circuit is a legitimate reason
but there might be other ways to accomplish that other than a new line.

She suggested upgrading existing corridors and infrastructure rather
than building new, and she advocated replacing fossil-fueled power with
renewable energy. As utility companies are required to implement
renewable energy standards, at the same time they should be backing off
from traditional power sources, she said.

Overland said new transmission lines are being constructed not to address need or renewable energy mandates but to sell power.

She encouraged Valley residents to push for legislation that allows them
to become part of the public input process early on (“typically the
public does not get involved until too late”) and that requires utility
companies to consider the people who are directly affected by proposed
transmission lines, such as the landowners over whose property the lines
will cross.

“It’s built on the backs of landowners … and on the backs of ratepayers.”

Overland also said just because an area might provide the best resource
for renewable energy such as solar does not mean it should be used over
an area that might provide adequate resources and less disturbance to
landowners.

“This isn’t rocket science,” she said. “It’s only electrical.”

She urged local residents to “get loud,” “raise hell” and become involved politically and publicly.

“Get active at all levels,” she said. “You’ve got to be proactive. They are not going to come to you.”

Colorado Open Lands President Dan Pike urged utilization of the NEPA
process in connection with this project. He said he has never seen a
better, more comprehensive process. NEPA looks at both sides of an
issue, benefits and drawbacks and considers all types of impacts from
economic to environmental, he said.

Pike, whose organization holds 20 conservation easements in the
transmission line study area (the largest of which is on Trinchera
Ranch), described processes and players involved in transmission line
projects and said it can be very complicated, with decision makers
involved at all levels from local to federal levels.

“The day of utilities making proposals for transmission lines in isolation is about over,” he said.

Pike said environmental analysis decisions could be appealed first
administratively and ultimately legally if necessary. The latter is
something most government agencies want to avoid, he said, so they want
to make sure the process is conducted properly.

He said as it stands now, environmental analyses have not been
comprehensive enough, and if more information and more impacts are not
considered, “they have got an imminently challengeable decision.”

Going back to NEPA, he said, “I am really a fan of NEPA as a decision
making tool … It requires you have the adequate information to make
decisions. I don’t think we have got the adequate information.”

The third speaker at Wednesday night’s TLC forum was Gary Graham, Ph.D.,
transmission project director for Western Resource Advocates, an
environmental group that came out in support of the La Veta line. His
main focus was climate change, and he talked about warming trends and
the effect on wildlife habitat, particularly at higher elevations.

Graham advocated replacing “dirty energy” with renewable energy, with that energy requiring transmission.

“We don’t know how much renewable energy is going to be needed,” he said.

He added, “green energy is a global issue … Think globally. Lead
locally. Climate change, for all of us, has to become part of the
dialogue.”

Unfortunately, Graham did not disclose that in the last two Energy Foundation grant cycles, Western Resource Advocates received ~$500k to advocate FOR transmission, a la Wind on the Wires (linked HERE).  Look what they have to say about High Plains Express (HPX):

WRA 2007 Comments on HPX

Hs should have, and I should have outed him then, because what their transmission advocacy only increases ability of utilities to move that coal generated electricity around — they are NOT advocating to shut any plants down to make room for renewables!  Of course, they’re advocating the same pro-transmission positions as the Izaak Walton League’s “Wind on the Wires” which is no surprise because the $$$ comes from the same place!  They’re assuming transmission is necessary and promoting federal authority and NIETC designated transmission corridors, and rather than shut down coal, saying that emissions should be “captured and sequestered” and use the same corridor for a CO2 pipeline!  Obviously they did not know/admit what we all in Mesaba Project land knew about the farce of “sequestration.” (click HERE for search of Legalectric on “gasification” for info on IGCC and carbon capture)  Once more with feeling — CO2 capture and storage is NOT happening, case on point is the recent release (snort!) of information about the leaking CO2 experiment with “Enhanced Oil Recovery” by piping CO2 into the ground in Weyburn, Sask.  It is NOT happening, and the DOE admits that in their environmental review for these projects.  And transmission “for renewables” is not, it’s all about export, the San Luis Valley line and particularly the HPX line which starts at the Dave Johnston coal plant in Wyoming, tying into Xcel’s Comanche plant, which the San Luis Valley line would connect into as well.   Yes, it’s all connected… transmission, the foundation grants… maybe it’s time to concertedly expose those Energy Foundation grants for what they are?

And exactly a year earlier, look what was happening in New Mexico:

HPX “Stakeholder” meeting January 13, 2010

It’s on the MN eDemocracy Forum, it’s in the STrib, and his dreams of being President are my nightmare.

From the STrib:

Where will Pawlenty’s legacy lead?

My take is another matter:

Pawlenty’s legacy — I was reminded of it yesterday as I testified for the 13, 14 or15th time at the PPSA Annual Hearing and spent too many hours in prep, reminded of the changes over his tenure.

Pawlenty is the “Green Chameleon,” all the PR of being “green” yet promoting the most environmentally devastating options.

“Green Chameleon” for his promotion of the Excelsior Energy Mesaba Project, a coal gasification boondoggle on the range, throwing tens of millions of state (IRRB, RDF, DEED) money at it, illegally because environmental review wasn’t completed;

“Green Chameleon” for his promotion of the biggest and most costly transmission line build-out in Minnesota history, so big that Phase I required notification to over 80,000 landowners;

“Green Chameleon” for his promotion of ethanol as it stunk up St. Paul and drained one southwestern MN city’s aquifer dry;

“Green Chameleon” for the shift of “environmental review” of utility infrastructure projects to Dept. of Commerce under his watch;

“Green Chameleon” for promoting the 2005 Energy Omnibus Bill (Ch. 97) that substituted “regional” need for “Minnesota” need as a criteria for utility infrastructure, allowed transmission only companies (another step of deregulation);

“Green Chameleon” for, in 2006, signing off on the changes to Minn. Stat. 117.189 that exempted utilities from the landowner protective provisions in eminent domain;

“Green Chameleon” for no new taxes and failure to adequately fund agencies during a time of unprecedented number of permit proceedings, including a Commerce Dept. that doesn’t even have an electrical engineer on staff(!);

“Green Chameleon” for ushering in relicensing of Monticello and Prairie Island nuclear plants and increasing dry cask storage of high level nuclear waste on the Mississippi River at Monticello and Prairie Island at a time of unprecedented decrease in demand for electricity, Xcel alone down nearly 1,500MW since the 2006 peak;

“Green Chameleon” for doing everything possible through his agencies to limit, hamstring, thwart and silence public participation and fully informed decisions by Public Utilities Commission.

Can you tell I’m disgusted?  I could go on… it’s been a long 8 years.  The legacy of his energy policy, agency direction and muzzling of the public should have him aspirating on his aspirations.  We shall see…

And unfortunately I’m not confident it will be much different going forward.  Again, we shall see…

Carol A. Overland

Attorney representing citizens groups and landowners in utility infrastructure proceedings at PUC and local governments.
Living and officing in City of Red Wing, County of Goodhue, home of the Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant, the Goodhue County Wind Ordinance, and two garbage burners